Stadium bill suffers twin setbacks at the Capitol

The legislation is rejected in the House, gutted in the Senate

In the 48 hours since a bill to build a new Minnesota Vikings stadium using public money was introduced, it has been hammered into an untested idea to sell personal seat licenses — and survives only in the Senate.

Wednesday was a day of rapid-fire developments for the closely watched legislation, which supporters hoped would move swiftly through the Capitol in these last two weeks of the session.

The team has been asking for a new home for years and says it will not renew its Metrodome lease past 2011 without a deal, which now looks like a long shot.

Early Wednesday, the bill hit a wall in the House, where the chairman of a state and local government operations committee blasted the Vikings for everything from hiring lobbyists to the bill's late timing. It was defeated on a 10-9 vote.

"It's mortally wounded but not necessarily dead," said Rep. Loren Solberg, DFL-Grand Rapids, the bill's sponsor in the House.

A companion committee in the Senate later gutted another proposal and substituted a plan modeled after the Carolina Panthers stadium. Under the proposal, season ticketholders could buy seat licenses, costing thousands of dollars a year.

"I think there was a strong desire on the part of the committee to do something to keep the Vikings in Minnesota," said Sen. Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, chief Senate sponsor of the stadium bill.

"I'm pretty pleased with the vote coming out of committee. I think the question is the permanent seat-licensing provision — how much money can it raise? I think that's what we need to find out.

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Vikings officials were cautious about the plan. They pointed out that North Carolina football fans bought licenses in the hope of bringing NFL football to the state, not for a team that was already there. And they said Minnesota Twins officials found only a limited market for them, raising $5 million.

"That's a far cry from what it takes to fund a facility or to build a facility," Vikings Vice President Lester Bagley said.

The Senate bill does not name a location for the stadium.

More obstacles emerged Wednesday in the form of a potentially far-reaching Minnesota Supreme Court budget ruling that could occupy lawmakers' time when the Vikings need as much of it as they can get. Gov. Tim Pawlenty suggested the ruling edged the team's chances of a bill from slim toward none.

"It's not helpful," Pawlenty said. "We've got bigger fish to fry, more important things to address."

House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher agreed.

"It's a very uphill issue at this point, especially with the court ruling," Kelliher said.

The House hearing was just the second on the bill, which originally envisioned two ways to pay for a $791 million fixed-roof stadium, with taxpayers footing two-thirds of the bill.

That proposal was altered dramatically when Pawlenty came out against a roster of metro-area taxes on car and hotel rentals as well as a statewide professional sports memorabilia tax. What's left is an idea to use existing Minneapolis taxes to help pay for the public's share of construction costs.

For the next 10 years, those taxes would continue to pay off debt on the Minneapolis Convention Center, with the Vikings covering the cost of building the new stadium. Once the convention center is paid off, those taxes would be redirected to the stadium. The team would sign a 40-year lease.

But the city of Minneapolis has been skeptical of that idea, and a provision allowing the city to use some of the money to pay off debt on the Target Center has been criticized by St. Paul officials, too.

"It should not be one city that bears the entire burden," Minneapolis City Council member Elizabeth Glidden said.

Officials said there have been frequent contacts among Minneapolis officials, the team and state elected officials who support the stadium. One of them, Rep. Morrie Lanning, R-Moorhead, seemed to get frustrated with the city's position during Wednesday's hearing.

"Is the city of Minneapolis interested and willing to try to negotiate a solution or not?" Lanning asked.

But most of the criticism came from Rep. Gene Pelowski, DFL-Winona, who demanded to know how many lobbyists the team had hired. When Bagley replied that the Vikings employed three different firms, Pelowski chortled, "So you are a full-employment lobbyist operation?"

The Senate bill now proceeds to a rules committee. Backers in the House would either have to persuade one lawmaker to switch his or her vote or offer the bill as an amendment on the House floor.